


Old foxes are not easily caught (but a sharp cat just might do it)

by Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat



Category: Scarlet and Ivy Series - Sophie Cleverly
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Forced Pregnancy, Implied/Referenced Underage Rape/Non-con, Not my usual style, POV Third Person Omniscient, reference to Edith poisoning her husband
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29597079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat/pseuds/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat
Summary: Guinevere Fox is rather tragic, under it all.
Kudos: 2





	Old foxes are not easily caught (but a sharp cat just might do it)

Guinevere Fox hires her daughter, because she must.

(She beats her because she wants to.)

(Oh, little finch, you should fly away, if you can  
The bird's wing is broken, it cannot  
A tragedy, the wild whispers.)

*

"Don't touch me." Scarlet barks, like a rabid dog too-far gone to ever be tamed, wild anger and fury and fear all mixing into a boiling pot of desperation, of despair, and Miss Fox hates her, hates to see the wildness of insanity reflected like a shadow of her young self, hates the very thing her too-thin face and scrabbling hands (for she is always clutching for something to hold onto) represents. So, when she cannot snuff it out with canings and reprimands and everything else the asylum had taught her, Guinevere gets rid of her.

(It was always only a matter of time for Scarlet Grey, who flinched even before Rookwood, who startled and yelled and fought, who cried for attention and in the same breath screamed her hatred of it. Scarlet Grey was too much like Guinevere, and she couldn't _stand_ it. When the girl confronted her- well, it only really gave her an excuse to do it)

(That was not the case for poor Violet Adams, whose slick tongue had always gotten her out of trouble before, whose luck and lies let her find the truth behind the worst of all, while simultaneously abandoning her when she needed it most. It came back after, shaky and unsteady, but it let Rose find interest in her, let the doctors decree her sane enough to speak with the other patients, let her find comfort amongst madness. Scarlet, who had clawed her way above her standing point with grit and fear and desperation, was never that lucky.)

(Some people are born lucky, with a silver spoon in their mouths. Scarlet had scraped her knees raw and bloody just to be equal with them, and Guinevere hated her for it. Because they were one and the same and Guinevere looked Scarlet in the eyes and saw enough desperation to drown in.)

Miss Fox gets rid of Violet Adams, who knew too much, and Scarlet Grey, who only suspected, in one fell swoop. Nobody notices, because Violet is aloof and cold and unfriendly, and no one likes Scarlet (except, maybe, her twin). They are gone and everything is fine now, nearly better, except— she had slipped up when she lied about Scarlet, and she only has so much money to bribe people with, so she fetches Scarlet's replacement.

The girl is nothing like Scarlet.

(Unfortunately, this is Guinevere's downfall. Ivy is nothing like Scarlet because she adapted differently. Scarlet was all bark and no bite, a dog howling for a master who would never return, and Ivy is carefully filed-down teeth and sharp, watchful eyes. She is the housecat that leaves when you hit it, not the dog who stays. A little hurt, yes, and maybe a little feral, but smart and wary and most importantly of all, vengeful. Ivy is the slow and deadly poison Edith gives her husband, the claws of a crow (because they will remember your face, even once they die. A crow sees a murder, and does not forget. And oh, Scarlet is dead.), the dark of the wild before it asks you, once, to leave. Ivy is meek and shy at surface and deadly beneath. She is the light of an anglerfish, and Guinevere is her prey (not that either of them know it, at first.))

She pretends to be her twin, and Guinevere takes some perverse pleasure in how that seems to eat her up inside, seems to drive her just as mad as she is. She seems like trapped quarry, and Miss Fox _loves_ her for it. (One Grey sister will tell you: attention is everything. Without it, you starve. Another will say: it is better to be meek and quiet and safe, than to be loved. It poisons you. Both are right - and both are wrong.) The girl doesn't flinch, or yell or fight. She submits, slinks away like an injured animal. She fights because Miss Fox, headteacher Fox, demands it of her, by the order of _become your sister,_ and everything is perfect. (Guinevere does not know then, that Ivy is the glint of a hidden blade right before it plunges into your side.)

She does befriend Ariadne, which Miss Fox _hates,_ but it is of little concern. (Guinevere also does not yet understand that Ariadne is an accountant's daughter, and a raging bonfire, fire under human skin. Ivy, half-feral housecat of a lonely household, would not know what to make of Guinevere's doings. Violet, a snake of good inheritance, and Ariadne, dragon without a horde, understand. How Guinevere wishes they didn't. It is her undoing.)

She doesn't keep an eye on the replacement, only dropping by to torment her (Guinevere is only copying what she knows, at the end of it. That asylum has never been very good for anyone. The fox lost her tempered wild to it, and was only left with the ferocity underneath. The deer was silenced, and the snake poisoned, and the dog chained, but at least they left with sanity gripped tight in their hands). She knows exactly what she is doing. (Guinevere only really knows how to thrive in cruelty, not quite forty and yet both too old and far too young.) Everything is going perfectly, and so she lets her guard down.

*

The problem with dogs whose owners hit them is this: they lash out sometimes, at people who don't deserve it. The problem with Scarlet Grey is this: she is loyal to the only person who she betrayed, the only person who loves her, at a level Miss Fox could never expect, and she was smart enough to leave warning.

(The problem with twins is this: they are two halves of the same whole, and you cannot take them apart. The problem with the Grey twins is this: Guinevere gave both of them too much time to prepare.)

Ivy bursts into her office like a wild thing, and Ariadne trails in her wake. They destroy everything Miss Fox has ever built up, like the half-feral once-housecat and hordeless dragon they are (because the cat hisses and spits it's accusations through trembling hands that cry for them to run, and the dragon destroys the horde it cannot have and does not want). Two children with righteous anger and vengeful fury in their hearts topple the house of cards a madman made, and their actions set free the finch and the deer and the snake and the dog. (At least, from physical chains. The finch remains grounded and the deer is still mostly silent and the snake dreams of dying and the dog cannot dream at all, but at least they are free. The fox tumbles deeper into the hell of its own making.)

"You are just like your sister." Miss Fox spits, and it is not a complement. To Ivy, it feels like one anyways.

(The problem with madmen is this: they do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. The problem with Guinevere Fox is this: she grew complacent.)

Despite everything, Miss Fox still escapes.

*

There once was a girl, too young to be a mother, and she went mad.

(There once was a sister, too young to be all alone, and she swore vengeance on the burnt-out embers of her heart.)

*

Miss Fox does not get better in her time on the run. As a matter of fact, she gets worse. She is not just insane but murderous, with nothing left to loose, and had **he** still been alive he would have died by her hands then.

As it is, he has already passed away, unknowing of the way he had destroyed a young girl's life.

(I love you, someone had once told her. (The world is built on lies, and the quirk of a man's mouth. When she was ten Guinevere's mother had told her about men, and she had only half-listened. It cost her everything.) She was too young and he was too charming and he did not take no for an answer (It should not be expected of victims to save themselves))

She torments her daughter and Scarlet and _that girl_ and everyone who has ever crossed her (and some who have not), but her most of all. She poisons the school and shoves a student out of a window and tries to throw both twins off the stage rafters.

She wants them dead. They ruined everything.

Miss Fox is arrested.

*

She does not hang

(It would have been kinder to let her)

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah idk I just rambled this out in one sitting so if it's awful, sorry?
> 
> The title comes from a proverb! I was also inspired by the farmer's bride by Charlotte Mew


End file.
